How to sell a house during a divorce

Your home could be the most valuable asset you own and divorces are rarely pleasant when selling your house before a divorce is final. Things often get even messier when the time comes to sell a couple’s biggest and most expensive joint asset: The family home.

During the stressful event of divorce, you and your spouse need to manage selling assets before the divorce is filed for your separation. The house is usually a part of a larger group of assets when filing for a divorce, which is all combined into a pool that is then split between both parties at agreed amounts. So in this sense, selling a house after a divorce is not simply a matter of letting the house go for any price and splitting the proceeds.

How to sell a house during a divorce?

Most couples going through a separation sell their family home and move into their own separate properties. On the other hand, do choose to buy out their partner.
Once you’ve decided for selling the house before divorce final, you’ll be confronted with a long-drawn-out process that includes various activities. Each of these tasks takes diligent work at the best of times, and the emotional change that accompanies divorce doesn’t make them any less demanding.

When selling your assets before the divorce is final, it’s not suggested to do so without a professional. You both must ensure the agent is non-bias to one another and will act in BOTH of your interests. This is where you will both need to agree on how comfortable you feel with the agent selling your home. You also must ensure that the agent has the right skills to both negotiate on your behalf and market your property in the right manner. If you and your former spouse cannot decide, you can each pick a specialist and have those two agents both work on selling the house with either a commission split or whoever finds the buyer earns the commission.

• Settling on an Asking Price

It is best to get a few price recommendations from different agents. However, once you have selected an agent/s you can trust, you should accept the agent’s recommendation about your properties value. Turning the choice over to the expert will eliminate with one potential clash in selling the house before divorce final. If you think the professional’s assessment is way too low or too high, you may require an alternate agent (or your very own rude awakening).

• Get ready to Show the House

Preparing the house can be the most troublesome piece of the procedure. There is always some work that should be done to ensure you receive the highest possible price for your home. These include, but are not limited to;
• Minor repairs
• Painting
• Cleaning
• Renovating
• Staging

If both of you have moved out when you put the house on the market, you can leave the place to be organized by the estate agent. If one of you is as yet living there, you’ll have to ensure the place is always tidy/decluttered both inside and out.

• Exploring Offers

You’ll need to cooperate when it comes time to review offers from potential purchasers, particularly in if you are living in a place where the property market is unstable. Your specialist can advise you but you’ll need to settle on the choice together.

• If you can’t agree

Judges can enforce an order for a house to be sold so the dividends can be split, and can also make an order for a professional, independent valuer to complete a valuation.

• Dividing the Cash

Finally, you’ll need to make sense of how to split the dividends. After paying off every one of the stakeholders selling/preparing/staging the house and repaying your mortgage, your divorce lawyer will advise on the percentage split you and your former spouse will receive the dividends.